- A number of European intelligence agencies assess that Russia may look to attack a NATO state by 2030, as a way to test NATO’s mutual defence commitment. Russia is already intensifying cyber-attacks, information operations, sabotage and other forms of hostile activity below the threshold of war that might trigger a military response. At the same time, the US is pulling back from its commitments to European security. To be able to deter Russia in the short-to-medium term with less US help, European NATO allies will have to fill key capability gaps quickly.
- European governments are spending significantly more on defence, but this alone will not ensure improved readiness. Alongside major investments in new capabilities and platforms, governments need a more realistic assessment of their capabilities that are ready to ‘fight tonight’. Based on that assessment and any gaps it identifies, European governments need to build up the personnel, systems, logistics and technology required. They should also focus more sharply on investing in servicing equipment, stockpiling munitions and other supplies, and ensuring a pipeline of personnel trained to use existing capabilities.
- As defence budgets grow, European governments no longer have to choose between building up the European defence industrial base and acquiring equipment quickly, regardless of its source. They can buy off the shelf, if necessary from non-European suppliers, to fill urgent capability gaps for which it would be too costly or take too long to build up the European defence industrial base, while simultaneously investing in long-term European industrial capacity.
- European governments need to take lessons from Ukraine on how to achieve a concentration of war fighting capacity and use modular defence equipment systems in any potential conflict. Unmanned cheap systems are a low-cost way for Europeans to bring mass to any eventual conflict and will go some way to making up for lack of personnel, especially in the early days of a crisis. Software can be used to improve equipment rapidly and cheaply, without new hardware purchases.
- To improve armed forces recruitment and retention, ministries of defence need to improve pay packages for personnel, introduce flexible service commitments, and review which roles need stringent physical requirements and loosen the requirements for those that do not.
- Governments should also think more creatively about the skills needed for national security. This includes facilitating the use of existing skills in the civil workforce for defence. Ministries of defence should speed up the security clearance process and review regulation which acts as a barrier for transfers into defence.
- Europe’s adversaries already seek to destabilise European societies with information operations, drones flown around critical infrastructure or used to close airports, cyber attacks and sabotage. Governments can make better use of the civilian population to contribute to the defence of Europe by training them to spot fake news, report suspicious drone or other activity and improve cyber security at home and in workplaces.
- Throughout these efforts, obtaining public buy-in for rearmament continues to be key. Governments can use declassified intelligence to explain what the security threat is, and outline what they are already doing to keep the nation safe and deter the threat. An element of this could be demonstrating the cost of Russia’s war on Ukraine to households in Europe, and what the cost of a broader war would be in contrast to that.
About the Author:
Armida van Rij is a Senior Research Fellow, CER